pi Desktop

A desktop app for the pi coding agent. The same agent and the same ~/.pi/agent you use in the terminal — with a timeline, Git review and a clickable session tree.

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pi Desktop is not another agent. It runs the pi SDK in a background worker and reads the same files as the CLI — sessions, model logins, settings.json, installed extensions. Open a project and the sessions you started in the terminal are already in the sidebar; continue any of them, or start a new one.

At a glance

One turn, start to finish

Recorded from the app itself. The model replies come from a scripted local endpoint so the demo is reproducible; the bash, read and edit tools ran for real on the sample repo.

Timeline

Tool calls stream in as flat steps — thinking, commands, reads, edits — and fold into one summary line once the answer starts. Each edit shows +N −M; the turn ends with a Files changed card that opens the file in Files or Review.

Markdown, code blocks, KaTeX and long outputs render in place. Hover a message to copy it, rewind to it, or fork a new session from it.

Review

Pick a scope — this turn, this session, or the whole Git working tree — and expand a file for its diff; drag the sidebar wider for a side-by-side view. Hunks can be staged or unstaged one at a time, and a line comment goes straight back into the conversation.

Files

• Browse the project next to the chat; Ctrl/⌘+click opens a file in another tab.
• The gutter button quotes path:line into the composer as a reference.
• Expand preview gives the file the whole chat column; click again to go back. Drag a file onto the composer to attach it.

Composer

• @ searches project files (respects .gitignore, uses fd) and inserts them as references.
• / lists pi's built-in commands and the ones your extensions register.
• Paste or drop images and files; model and thinking level sit at the right of the input.
• While the agent is working, Enter steers the current turn and Alt+Enter queues a follow-up for when it finishes.

Parallel sessions

Each session runs in its own worker. Start a turn, open another session and start a second one: both keep going, the sidebar marks the ones that are working and the status bar counts them. Settings → General sets how many workers stay alive and when idle ones are reclaimed; running sessions are never reclaimed.

More panels

Themes

Light and dark each take a preset or your own colors, and follow the system when you want them to. Themes import from pi-theme-v1 / codex-theme-v1 strings; custom CSS, five icon sets and 90–110% density are in Settings → Appearance.

How it fits together

The renderer never talks to the SDK directly: the main process routes each request to the worker that owns the session, and that worker runs the pi SDK on your machine or inside a WSL distribution. Sessions, logins and settings stay in ~/.pi/agent, so the CLI and the app can take turns on the same session.

Also included

Install

Get them from Releases; each release lists SHA-256 checksums in SHA256SUMS.txt. The app bundles its own pi SDK; you only need to sign in to a model provider once, the same way you do for terminal pi (the credentials live in ~/.pi/agent). Settings → Runtime can switch to a globally installed pi version.

Requires Node.js ≥ 22.19.

git clone https://github.com/justhil/pi-app.git
cd pi-app
npm install
npm run dev          # development
npm run build        # production bundle in out/
npm run package      # installers via electron-builder

First five minutes

1. Open folder — the folder becomes the agent's working directory. For a throwaway chat, use + next to Conversations instead.
2. Pick a session — sessions from terminal pi for that folder are listed; + next to the project starts a new one.
3. Send — Enter sends, Shift+Enter adds a line.
4. Look right — Review, Run, Context, Tree and Files share the right sidebar; drag its edge to make it wider.
5. Go back — hover a message to rewind or fork, or press Esc twice in an empty composer to open the session tree.

Shortcuts

Extensions

Install and enable extensions exactly as for terminal pi:

pi install npm:<package>      # or: pi install git:github.com/<owner>/<repo>

then make sure the package is enabled in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json → packages and start a new session. Settings → Extensions shows what the current worker loaded; Settings → Adapters holds each adapter's desktop options. To override or add an adapter, put a .json adapter file in ~/.pi/desktop/adapters/ (or <project>/.pi/desktop/adapters/, which takes precedence) — see the authoring guide.

The mic